The Comfort-Lover’s Answer to Snow.

Hot buttered toast.

That is this comfort-lover’s answer to snow. Especially after a couple of hours of the daily dog walk spent traipsing up and down the lower slopes of mountainsides covered with the white stuff, while trying to avoid those icy bits in the middle of the path. The up and downside of living on the edge of a village, partway up a mountain in Snowdonia. Beautiful; but oh, so cold!

To be honest, I never in my wildest dreams expected to be making my own butter. Well, at least not so soon. One day, maybe, had been my vague idea. Along with cheese making and creating wine from that grape vine that hasn’t been quite planted yet. Yeah, right.

You see, I have made butter as a child, but I remember that as involving a lot of shaking of a jam jar for very small results, and my wrists and elbows aren’t that young any more. And, besides, I have a life.

So how did I end up with butter as my very first comfort-loving venture? It was the yoghurt, I suppose. Just before the snow hit, I shot down to the nearest town for emergency supplies of dog food and live yogurt (my village does sell yogurt, but not generally of the live kind), along with tahini for my attempt on hummus, and a few other bits and pieces.

Then I dithered. Lots of wonderful kind people gave me recipes and advice, and I trawled my way through the Internet, trying to work out which one I was going to try first. Which is when, quite by accident, I came across instructions for making butter in a blender or food processor.

Now, I love my faithful old food processor. I’ve lost all the blades except the sharp one – plus any other fancy attachments it came with - long ago. But I make all sorts in it, from coleslaw to cakes. Butter, I decided instantly, I had to try.

Being snowed in, my only source of the essential (as in, only) ingredient had to be the local shop. Real double cream is a bit thin on the ground in my village, but this being after Christmas, I pounced on two left-overs on the reduced price shelf, right on their sell-by date. Yoghurt could wait!

The instructions said to leave the cream at room temperature until it reached 55 degrees. I can see I’m going to have to invest in a food thermometer at some point. Being snowed in, I compromised by putting the cartons on a radiator for a bit, keeping an eagle eye on my dog, who – unlike the cats – is not fooled by packaging, and will try anything once. (Or more)

The rest of the instructions were to put the warm cream into the blender/food processor and let it turn on the lowest setting until you heard the tell-tale slosh of the fat separating from the liquid. This, said the instructions, could take up to three hours.

Three hours? Mine took ten minutes, at the most. I’d only just settled down to eat my omelette and there, in my food processor, was a lump of buttery stuff in amongst the buttermilk. I couldn’t believe it could be so easy! Well, there are other bits to do, like pouring off the buttermilk and then ‘washing’ the butter with water, but the food processor did all the action for that, too. Then I bashed the butter around a bit on a plate, in a sort of experimental fashion as I wasn’t entirely sure what I was doing, but that’s what the instructions said. This bit, I think, was to get the last bits of liquid out.

When the bashing stopped being fun, I put the result in a butter dish. It was still quite soft, and I was quite sure it was the way I’d done things and this was how it would stay. Sort of half-butter. Not bad for a first attempt and a good learning experience, ready for next time.

But in the morning, there it was in my fridge. Butter. Real butter! Firm and smooth and mind-blowingly delicious. Creamier than cream itself, but with a clean, delicate taste. Sort of like how I remember unsalted Lurpack, but much tastier.

Wow. Toast from the sourdough loaf from the baker down the road (more about that next time), and my own homemade butter. What a combination! And from two 300ml cartons, I’ve got plenty of the stuff. It’ll last me at least two weeks, if not more. And the thing is, that it’s so delicious and satisfying I’m finding I’m not tempted to eat loads of it. Which is weird, but true.

All right, the cream wasn’t organic or local, and I am left with two plastic cartons. That bit still needs sorting. But this is my first step. And what it has taught me is that even something I thought of as time-consuming and complicated is really quite simple. What did it take? An hour of my time, while watching the TV programme I’d have been watching anyhow. And, in the end, it was fun and gave me a huge buzz of achievement. Alchemy in my very own kitchen! Plus I ended up with something that is still blowing my taste buds away.

And so this is the comfort-lover’s answer to keeping a lively young collie calm(ish) and content during ice and blizzards. Veg soup made from the contents of my veg box (more about that later), local bread, the hummus I whizzed up in two seconds flat in the food processor while the soup was heating up (more about that later, too) and my very own homemade butter.

And next time I’ll have the courage to just shape the butter, so it can properly fit into my wonderful butter dish, which has a space at the top for water to keep the butter cool. My bargain of the month, at under a fiver from my local charity shop. Yipee!

This is the link I found on how to make butter in a blender: http://www.kountrylife.com/content/how21.htm